Researchers uncovered that humans possess remaining neural circuits for ear movement, a trait largely unused since our ancestors lost this ability around 25 million years ago. Despite the diminished function, these neural structures still activate during focused listening. A study with 20 participants revealed that the auriculomotor system responds contextually to auditory challenges, similar to how animals adjust their ears to enhance sound directionality. The findings provide insights into the human auditory process and how our brain retains traces of evolutionary functions.
Writing in the journal Frontiers in Neuroscience, the team reported how they asked 20 adults without hearing problems to listen to an audiobook played through a speaker at the same time as a podcast was played from the same location.
The team previously found the movement of these muscles in humans is related to the direction of the sounds they are paying attention to.
However, we have been able to demonstrate that the neural circuits still seem to be present in some state, our brain retained some of the structures to move the ears, even though they apparently are not useful anymore.
We were interested in finding out if the auriculomotor system in humans is sensitive to effortful listening.
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